


Ichiban • いちばん

by patriciaselina



Category: Free!
Genre: Awkward Crush, Awkwardness, Childhood Memories, First Kiss, Fluff, Gen, Headcanon, Headcanon Names, Implied Nanase Haruka/Tachibana Makoto, M/M, Mutual Pining, Mutually Unrequited, POV First Person, Rei POV, Secret Crush, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-10
Updated: 2014-03-10
Packaged: 2018-01-15 05:47:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1293586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patriciaselina/pseuds/patriciaselina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>This is the story, the one I tell a worried Makoto-senpai and a poker-faced Haruka-senpai and an all-</em>too<em>-excited Nagisa in its entirety – it was Christmastime, and I had just turned two a few days ago. </em>Rei is hounded to tell the story of his first kiss, and comes up with unexpected results.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ichiban • いちばん

**Author's Note:**

> For the Nagisa-POV prequel, please refer to [this thing I wrote as a part of my Reigisa week ficlet series](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1812010/chapters/3888754).

This is the first thing you _absolutely_ have to understand: Nagisa is my best friend.

The second thing is that – that somewhere in between his buffet jaunts and his penchant for calling me beautiful, I fell head-over-heels in love with him and have no idea when exactly I crossed the point of no return.

It's something to do with cause-and-effect, I'd like to say, but the truth is it all just happened simultaneously. Hence my inane urge of wanting to kiss him arising at about the same time I want to help him with homework. Hence me wanting to take him on a proper romantic date as we're already on a platonic one.

Hence the embarrassing reaction I spout when he asks his question, because no matter how much I want it to be my answer couldn't be _Hazuki Nagisa._

“Ne, Rei-chan, have you ever had your first kiss?”

“Wha -- but _why_ \--” I hear myself say, my mouth opening and closing nonsensically like one of Makoto-senpai's goldfish. See what I said about embarrassing reactions?

But at least it makes Nagisa laugh. I can literally never get tired of hearing him laugh, but then again maybe that's just the lovesickness speaking.

“It's just us, Rei-chan, you don't have to be embarrassed around _us_!” Nagisa (life, love, bane of my existence) pipes up cheerily as he turns his attention to our other companions. “What about you guys, who'd you have your first kisses with?”

Makoto- _senpai_ turns a _fantastic_ shade of red, and it looks like he's robbed of all speech but still I can ascertain from the not-at-all subtle glances he keeps throwing leftward that is answer, had his brains not been scrambled enough, would be Haruka- _senpai_.

This is more than a little bit confusing, because Haruka- _senpai_ looks at us both, completely deadpan, completely oblivious to his best friend turning into a quickly reddening beet, and tells us a story about pressing his young lips to an absolutely vibrant, pristine and beautiful... “Waterfall.”

I have no idea why I ever expected him to say anything else.

“Mine was probably somewhere around middle school. I wasn't exactly shy with my crushes back then.” Nagisa says, and it's irrational how this makes my heart hurt, when he doesn't even know anything about what I feel right now, much less back then. I have _got_ to do something about these jealousy issues lest I approach the level at which Haruka- _senpai_ and Rin do their amusing but increasingly frustrating competition dance over Makoto- _senpai_...

Nagisa had told me, _repeatedly_ , that all our friends' problems would be solved if we just herded Makoto- _senpai_ and Rin and Haruka- _senpai_ in an empty room and just locked them in there for half a day. I've no idea if it'll work; it's a Nagisa-brand idea after all.

But recently I've grown more and more tempted to try. Please don't tell him that, he'll never let me hear the end of it.

“That’s all our first kisses, then – you feel up for telling us your story now, Rei-chan?”

Blast it all, of course Nagisa wouldn’t forget that he had been asking me in the first place. That’s how Nagisa is – when he put his mind to something, he stuck to it, until he gets his answer. Or the world ends. Whichever comes later.

I push up my glasses – this is a nervous habit I really have to grow out of but nobody seems to mind it so I guess it’s all fine – and tell him “I only know what my brother told me.”

Nagisa raises an eyebrow. “Rei-chan, I _do_ know you’re shy about this, but if the only people you’ve ever kissed are your family members you know you can just tell us, see –”

“It wasn’t a family member – of course I know enough about your manner of asking to know that you’d tell me ‘ _family kisses don’t count_!’, or something – it’s just that I wasn’t exactly in the right state to remember it, at the time…”

“Oh, Rei,” Makoto- _senpai_ murmurs worriedly, facing me with his trademarked miracle-of-the-universe mother-hen expression. “If you want to, you don’t have to tell us…”

“No, Makoto- _senpai_ , it’s not like that,” I say. “It’s just that I was really too young to remember. I was barely two years old, at the time.”

This is the story, the one I tell a worried Makoto- _senpai_ and a poker-faced Haruka- _senpai_ and an all- _too_ -excited Nagisa in its entirety – it was Christmastime, and I had just turned two a few days ago.

Mother and Father, on a rare day of inactivity, had taken me and my elder brother out for lunch. Maybe they were planning to get us Christmas gifts; but these are _my parents_ we’re talking about, they’ve already done their Christmas shopping months ago, already wrapped said gifts three months in advance.

I knew I had to get this obsession with anticipating from somewhere…anyway.

Somewhere in the middle of our stroll we had crossed paths with another family. There was a mother, not much older than my own, and they exchanged smiles and greeted each others’ children. “Where’s their father?” my mother had asked, and the other mother had said that he was working abroad.

In the middle of all of this, a small child – most probably their youngest, he, or she, was just too small – looked wide-eyed at my little self sitting in the stroller, as I had been, like my elder brother said, “looking off into the distance like nobody’s business”.

Then the other child – none of the members of my family could make out the child’s gender, only that they were chubby-cheeked and had eyes too large for their face – pointed to me, loudly proclaimed that I was “cute”, and _kissed_ me, actually honest-to-goodness _kissed me_ , right there on the _lips_ , without even missing a beat.

And that was the part where, my brother keeps telling me, he remembers wanting to throw up. He says he couldn’t remember anything that came after, couldn’t even remember how we got home or anything – but our mother says that he, in all his seven-year-old wisdom, had snatched me from the stroller after the other family left and kept muttering about ‘freeing the bro from cooties’ or something. She said that we had made a pretty picture and had the new-generation mobiles been in existence back then, she would’ve taken a lot of pictures.

I find myself thanking that those phones weren’t existing back then because Mother also says she wanted very much to take a picture of my supposed first kiss and she’d have whipped out her actual film camera but it was over as quickly as it started. I don’t think I’d even know what to do with myself if this mildly embarrassing story had documented evidence.

I don’t think I’d want Nagisa anywhere near three miles of said evidence, for one. This is partially because I am too much in love with him to think rationally, and partially because he’s my best friend and he already has enough material with which to tease me with and I shan’t support that endeavor of his further.

As I’m done with my story I look at my friends and see the reactions I’ve been expecting of them all this while: Makoto- _senpai_ is looking at me with that fond smile that he can’t help but offer when he’s faced with things he finds cute – at which I can’t help but flush pink because _me_ and _cute_ are not words that should exist in the same train of thought – and though Haruka- _senpai_ is as poker-faced as ever there’s a faint glimmer of something in his eyes that tells me yes, he was listening, and yes, he was interested. Then I find myself thanking all the deities up high that Rin isn’t here, because he’d probably laugh at me, along with Nagisa –

– Nagisa, who, oddly enough, has a faint flash of something that _might_ be hurt, or _sadness_ , in his eyes, but then again I must be imagining it because he grins widely enough to split his face in two and says, “Let’s find him then, Rei-chan!”

“I – what – but _why_?”

It’s the Hazuki Nagisa effect, I swear to God. I could _never_ think straight around that man.

“Isn’t it romantic, Rei-chan? Imagine: this kid thinks you’re cute enough to kiss, and does exactly that! Now, imagine if you were to meet again, and they’d see how handsome a young man you make right now, and you fell in love – it’s one for the romance novels, isn’t it?”

No, Nagisa-kun, it wouldn’t be, because I’m _already_ in love, and it’s not with some nameless kid who kissed me some fourteen years ago, it’s with this lovely _beautiful_ person with nice hair and a perfect smile who’s eating horrendously sweet bread in front of me right now. “I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way.”

 “Aww, is this ‘cuz we dunno if they’re a he or a she? Don’t worry, Rei-chan, I sure that if they liked you enough back then…”

“No, Nagisa-kun, that’s not the problem. I mean that – that even if I _did_ know who they were, it’d be useless, because I already _have_ someone I like…”

Did I just say that?

I am absolutely sure I am going to regret doing so, in the next three seconds.

“EEEHHHHHHHHHH REI-CHAN HAS SOMEONE HE LIKES??? TELL ME, _TELL ME_ , WHO IS IT?????”

Well, Nagisa, to be honest the answer is _you_ , but it’s not like I can just go and say that. So I push up my glasses – hopefully my hand is big enough to get in the way of my quickly reddening cheeks – and say “I exercise my right to remain silent!” before I can cave into the simple pleasure of saying _you, you, Nagisa-kun, it’s **always** been you…_

I have _got_ to learn how to control these feelings somehow.

“BUT REI-CHAN THAT’S UNFAIR!? AREN’T I YOUR BEST FRIEND????? TELL MEEEEEEEEEEEE……”

“Don’t shout so much, Nagisa! I’m sure Rei will tell us who it is, in time.” Makoto- _senpai_ says, as I swat at Nagisa’s flailing limbs with my hands. “Right, Rei?”

“Maybe,” I guess, once I’ve ascertained that our friendship has become strong enough to withstand the existence of this unbelievably embarrassing crush I happen to have on my very best friend. Maybe then I’d tell him. But probably not now.

Besides, he already knows of the kiss. Maybe that would tide his curiosity over for at least a little while…

* * *

 

There’s a reason why Nagisa always wants to be the one going to my place all the time, and not the other way around, and I think it has something to do with his three elder sisters. But right now, he’s stuck in bed with a bad case of the flu – see, I told him nothing good would come out of swimming when his nose kept running, but did he ever listen to me? _No_ …

“You’re going to visit Nagisa-kun, then?” my mother had said, as she saw me making congee over the stove.

“Yes, mother. Even though I know full well that it was his own lunacy that led to his illness, I cannot help but feel worried about him.” I reply, and blush. There’s supposed to be a way to phrase this _without_ sounding like such a lovestruck loon, but right now I fear I might’ve forgotten how that’d go. “And it just feels odd to go visit without bringing him something, and it feels even more odd to even _consider_ getting him flowers.”

Probably because if I did think of doing so my heart would call a coup on my brain and end up with me getting Nagisa red roses, and what would happen to us then?

I don’t see what my face looked like back then, but my mother must’ve seen something out-of-order, because she chuckles. I wonder what that had been? “All right then. I can take you to Nagisa-kun’s house, it’s been a long time since we’ve used the car.”

“No, Mother, it’s all right, Nagisa-kun’s isn’t that far away from here…”

“I know it’s all right, Rei. There’s a lot of things you can do without my help. You’ve grown up so much.” Mother says, looking at me with slightly misty eyes and if my brother finds out that I had directly-or-indirectly made my mother shed tears I will never ever hear the end of it. “Humor me, for once?”

So this is how I end up with my mother holding a small bunch of flowers – chrysanthemums and gardenias whose pale yellow reminded my mother of Nagisa’s hair – as we arrive in front of the two-storey house where my best friend/crush and the rest of his family calls home.

“Go ahead,” Mother says, and I raise my hand up to ring the doorbell.

One of Nagisa’s sisters gets the door – is this Izumi or Mizuki or Umi, why did Nagisa’s parents name them all after bodies of water, why does that sound like something Haruka- _senpai_ would do? She grins at me, and I don’t even know what to call her because all three of them have Nagisa’s Cheshire cat grin and too-bright eyes, and I haven’t seen them enough to know which of them has the short blonde hair and which of them has the long blonde hair and which of them has the brown hair; all I know is that all of them are Nagisa’s sisters, and they all love to tease him as much and as fiercely as they love him. And that none of them are people I’d recognize in a heartbeat, not if they didn’t remind me so much of their little brother…

“Hey, Rei-kun! Nagisa’s upstairs in his room, groaning like the little baby he is. Come on in…oh, are you Rei-kun’s mother?”

“Oh, yes, I am. Apologies for our intrusion, Hazuki-san.”

Nagisa’s sister smiles. “Please do call me Mizuki, auntie – can I call you auntie? Our Nagisa talks about your son so much that he practically feels like family to us by now.” she says, turning to grace me with a saucy wink that shouldn’t make me blush as hard as it does, it really shouldn’t.

“It’s fine, Mizuki-san…you’re Nagisa-kun’s third sister?”

“Ooh, I wish I was, auntie. I’m the firstborn. But it isn’t too obvious, is it?”

“What’re you talking about, _neechan_ , it’s _definitely_ obvious!! Oh, right, Rei-kun, Rei-kun’s mother, good afternoon.”

“Izumi, behave yourself.” Mizuki chides, waggling a finger at her sister. “Where’s mum and Umi?”

“They’re upstairs, trying to get the little brat to take his meds, and failing, of course. You know how stubborn he is.”

“ _Of course_ I know. He gets it from us.” Mizuki says, puffing her chest out as if the combined force of Hazuki-brand stubbornness was a point of pride. And maybe it was. “Rei-kun, auntie, do you want tea or something? Izumi can make herself useful and take you upstairs.”

Mother and I insist that we’d be perfectly fine without tea or assistance and the two Hazuki sisters need not tire themselves on our behalf, but our polite refusals are nothing against the sisters’ tenacious insistence on hospitality. So Izumi takes us upstairs, on an impromptu tour down the hallway (“that’s my room, it’s messy – that’s Umi’s room, it’s messi _er_ , believe me, and there’s Nagisa’s room, it’s the messiest”) and at the end of the line, when Izumi swings the door open, I expect a lot of things.

I expect that Nagisa’s looking perfectly adorable, all bunched up in blankets in his fluffy pastel bed, nose red and features scrunched up in the most adorable pout as he stares down at his medicine. I expect that, as both the Hazuki sisters I’ve met have been fair-haired, their youngest – the “Umi” sitting by Nagisa’s bedside – would be the brunette.

What I do not expect, however, is the absolutely jarring look Nagisa’s mother and my own share. It’s one of _recognition_ , which is weird because I think I’d remember getting to meet someone as effervescent as Nagisa in my childhood. Even if we weren’t to take into account my wildly raging and terribly embarrassing crush.

“What – really, _seriously_ , Rei-kun’s mother – it’s _you_?”

“And it’s actually _you_! Nagisa-kun’s mother, what a pleasant surprise!”

Nagisa’s mother chuckles, as if she really couldn’t believe it. Whatever it is. “It’s been what, fifteen years?”

“Fourteen, I think. Our Rei had just turned two, back then…”

“Mother,” I say, my confusion temporarily overpowering all the lessons I’ve ever had about not butting into elders’ conversations, “If you don’t mind my asking, had you met Nagisa-kun’s mother before?”

Nagisa sniffles rather pathetically, and turns to his own mother, as well. “Yeah, mom. How did you ever meet Rei-chan’s mom?”

There’s an absolutely mischievous twinkle to Nagisa’s mother’s eyes as she smiles, and right there at that moment all I can think of is that _it definitely runs in the family_. She turns to Nagisa’s youngest sister and says, “Umi, dear, can you help your sisters downstairs? Tell them Rei-kun and his mother are staying for dinner.”

“Oh, but Nagisa-kun’s mother, you really don’t have to! Me and Rei were just going to stay for a while, and go back home…”

“But I insist, Rei-kun’s mother, especially since our boys need a little bit of reminding – and please, do call me Nadeshiko.”

“Then please do call me Reina, Nadeshiko-san.”

“Ne, Rei-chan,” Nagisa stage-whispers, badly, beckons me closer as his sister vacates the seat by his bedside, closing the door behind her. “D’you have any idea what they’re talking about?”

“I have no idea whatsoever – oh, Mother, please do let me get this for you.” I say, taking the bouquet out of my mother’s hands before helping myself to a seat, as she takes a seat beside Nagisa’s mother, both of them wearing terrifyingly beatific smiles. “Here, Mother got you flowers, Nagisa-kun.”

“She did? Aww, thank you, Rei-chan’s mum!”

“You can call me auntie if you want, Nagisa-kun.” Mother says, with a twinkle to her eye that makes me feel very scared for myself all of a sudden. What really is going on? “Considering your history, it’d be more than all right.”

“What…history?”

“They really don’t know, Reina-san?”

“Rei was a toddler, Nadeshiko-san. I doubt he’d have remembered if we hadn’t told him. What about Nagisa-kun?”

“Ehh, as it is, I already find it hard for him to remember things in the present, so I don’t expect he’d remember what he’d done in the past.”

“Rei-chan, I’m beginning to get a little worried.” Nagisa mumbles, a little grin on his lips as he looks at me, then at our smiling mothers. “Stay with me?”

“If worst comes to worse I think I could carry you,” I say, and I don’t know why I said that, only that saying that makes my cheeks grow hot and Nagisa’s smile grow wider so I guess it’s not the _wrong_ thing to say, not exactly.

“Aw, there’s no need to be scared, Rei-kun, Nagisa.” Nagisa’s mother tells us, cocking an eyebrow and smiling softly. “It’s just that the two of you met, once, when you were really little. It was Christmastime fourteen years ago.”

So our mothers tell us the story of my first kiss, which happens to be _our_ first kiss, and how Nagisa had walked away looking very much like the cat that caught the canary, and somewhere along the retelling Nagisa’s fingers laced with mine and I don’t even know when that happened.

What I do know, though, is that when our mothers excuse themselves (to “help prepare dinner”, they said, even though all of Nagisa’s three full-grown sisters are already working on it), I am still holding on to Nagisa’s hand, and I don’t think I ever want to let go.

It’s not the most romantic setting – his room is a mess, and his nose is still running and it looks like he hasn’t been out of his pajamas in the last twenty-four hours – but words I’d once deemed irrational, like “fate” and “destiny”, are swirling around in my mind after hearing the whole story, and I just can’t help myself. So that’s what I tell him, that I don’t want to let him go again, not now, not ever, would he be all right with that, would he be all right with _me_?

And, miracle of miracles, he graces me with an absolutely brilliant smile, and he says _yes, Rei-chan, of course,_   ** _yes_.**

Life is perfect.

* * *

 

It's Christmas Eve and to my right lay Makoto- _senpai_ and Haruka- _senpai_ and Rin, in a flurry of tangled, flailing limbs, one of Rin's legs slung over Makoto-senpai's waist and one of Haruka- _senpai's_ hands gripping Makoto- _senpai's_ shirt.

Looks like Nagisa’s locked-room solution _might_ have some merit to it after all.

I chuckle briefly at this whole scenario, until of course I look to my left and see Nagisa lying beside me, his smile an otherworldly combination of shy and mischievous as he holds a sprig of fake plastic mistletoe over my head.

“Merry Christmas, Rei-chan,” he says, his voice impossibly soft and fond, and then he swoops down and, and _kisses_ me.

There's a lot of things I could say to this - probably that that kisses at midnight are for some other holiday entirely, or that he should've waited until I was awake enough to sit up and properly participate, or that taking the mistletoe off the doorjamb could be rightfully termed as _cheating_ \- but I say none of them.

Instead, what I do is tell him this - that kissing him feels very much like going home.

Nagisa's smile is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my entire life.

**Author's Note:**

> For those who prefer to reblog, here's [the tumblr post](http://patriciaselina.tumblr.com/post/79130223262/fic-ichiban-o).
> 
> Based on the 100% true and not at all made up story of someone's supposed childhood. Hahaha what are you talking about, of course it's not my own... /shifty eyes
> 
> I’ll probably come back to edit this with a vengeance, but right now I’ve just got this idea and had to get it out before it consumes me completely.
> 
> Kind of roundaboutly dedicated to [point0k](http://archiveofourown.org/users/point0k/pseuds/point0k) and her lovely [series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/76456)! This is the closest to childhood meetings I can ever write, please never mind where the original idea for Nagisa and Rei’s first meeting _actually_ came from, haha…anyway. I actually borrowed Rei’s mum’s name from said series, ‘cuz unlike with the Hazuki family I don’t have a headcanon name for her! I like that “Reina” works ‘cuz Rei can be sort-of-sort-of-not named from her, and because it sounds like the Filipino/Tagalog word for “queen”, _reyna_.
> 
> As for the Hazuki sisters’ names: as “Nagisa” means islet, a small island, and islands are surrounded by water…I thought it’d be fun to name all his sisters with water-themed names, hence: Izumi (“spring”), Umi (“sea”), and Mizuki (the “mizu” can be spelled differently, but right now it can also be spelled “water” – she’s the firstborn, the water theme started from her).
> 
> As Rei’s sort-of named after his mum, I like the idea of Nagisa having the same initials as his mum – and Nadeshiko just fit. I can’t help but be reminded of Sakura’s model mum in _Cardcaptor Sakura_ , who despite looking like the _yamato nadeshiko_ in theory, is actually not one in practice…
> 
> A yellow chrysanthemum is on the Imperial Seal of Japan, but they also mean “precious one”. Gardenias mean “good luck” but can also mean “secret love”. See, Rei’s mum knows more than she lets on…
> 
> There are authors who write H/C when they’re sad and fluff fic when they’re happy – I am not one of them. I write fluff/crack fics when I’m stressed, hence [_Leverage_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1262833) and [_Metanoia_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1172222) and this, and I can only get into writing my angstier works when I’m relaxed, hence [_Retrouvaille_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1015471) and [_Materiality_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1084649) being written during my vacations. Just wanted to tell you.
> 
> The title is obvious – _ichiban_ , “first” – but in titling this, I can’t help but be reminded of _Friends_ , of Joey Tribbiani’s Japanese commercial about electric blue lipstick. (“ _Ichiban. Lipstick for men_.”)
> 
> Thanks for reading, and I hope you liked it!


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